USGS Study on trail impact

All,
Here is a artical originally posted by Pete Rissler. It did not get
near enough attention, so I am reposting it:





Here's a recent study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey on trail use
in a National River and Recreation Area for the National Park Service.

Here's a synopsis and link from the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/news/news_releas...nps_study.html

Here's a link to the report, again off the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/resources/scienc...nps_report.pdf

Obviously since IMBA is linking to it, the report shows mountain biking in
a
favorable light at least being no different than the impact of hiking. ATV
and Horse trails were the worse degraded. Mountain Bikes had the smallest
width and Cross Sectional Area than the other users (ATV, Horses) though
there was no significant difference between bikes and hiking (essentially
the same). Bike trails also had the lowest amount of soil loss. In short
bike trails were in the best condition followed by hiking then horse then
ATV trails. If nothing else, the report is invaluable just for the
references.

One thing I haven't seen on these discussion between hikers, horse riders,
and mountain bikers is the spread of invasive weeds by horses into Natural
and Wilderness Areas. Since horses are herbivores they have the potential
to spread non-native plants (seeds) into new areas by defecation. This to
me is far worse than any type of trail damage caused by hikers or bikers.

Let the discussion and flaming begin!

Pete Rissler



*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

"Chris Foster" wrote in message
05.47...
All,
Here is a artical originally posted by Pete Rissler. It did not get
near enough attention, so I am reposting it:





Here's a recent study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey on trail use
in a National River and Recreation Area for the National Park Service.

Here's a synopsis and link from the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/news/news_releas...nps_study.html

Here's a link to the report, again off the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/resources/scienc...nps_report.pdf

Obviously since IMBA is linking to it, the report shows mountain biking in
a
favorable light at least being no different than the impact of hiking. ATV
and Horse trails were the worse degraded. Mountain Bikes had the
smallest
width and Cross Sectional Area than the other users (ATV, Horses) though
there was no significant difference between bikes and hiking (essentially
the same). Bike trails also had the lowest amount of soil loss. In short
bike trails were in the best condition followed by hiking then horse then
ATV trails. If nothing else, the report is invaluable just for the
references.

One thing I haven't seen on these discussion between hikers, horse riders,
and mountain bikers is the spread of invasive weeds by horses into Natural
and Wilderness Areas. Since horses are herbivores they have the potential
to spread non-native plants (seeds) into new areas by defecation. This to
me is far worse than any type of trail damage caused by hikers or bikers.

Let the discussion and flaming begin!

Pete Rissler


Maybe I need to put words in like liar, idiots, stupid, etc. and write in an
accusatory tone to elicit a response. Looks like science takes a back seat
to flaming.
--
Pete Rissler
http://web1.greatbasin.net/~rissler/
http://www.tccycling.com

Mike Vandeman wrote:
It is not experimental, so it is impossible to determine the relative
impacts of different forms of recreation. It simply compares
trailsused "mostly" by certain user groups. It is impossible to
conclude anything meaningful from such research. In order to get
meaningful results, you have to compare measured impacts from equal
numbers of passes by specific user groups. If 100,000 hikers used the
hiking trail & 10 mountain bikers used the mountain biking trail, no
useful information can be gleaned from comparing the" trail
conditions", as this "study" did.

It was a STUDY, not an EXPERIMENT. The work of a scientist like Dr.
Marion who has published numerous peer reviewed articles in scientific
journals certainly trumps the opinion of an amateur like you.

Dick Durbin
Not a mountain biker

Pete Rissler wrote:
"Chris Foster" wrote in message
05.47...

All,
Here is a artical originally posted by Pete Rissler. It did not get
near enough attention, so I am reposting it:





Here's a recent study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey on trail use
in a National River and Recreation Area for the National Park Service.

Here's a synopsis and link from the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/news/news_releas...nps_study.html

Here's a link to the report, again off the IMBA page

http://www.imba.com/resources/scienc...nps_report.pdf

Obviously since IMBA is linking to it, the report shows mountain biking in
a
favorable light at least being no different than the impact of hiking. ATV
and Horse trails were the worse degraded. Mountain Bikes had the
smallest
width and Cross Sectional Area than the other users (ATV, Horses) though
there was no significant difference between bikes and hiking (essentially
the same). Bike trails also had the lowest amount of soil loss. In short
bike trails were in the best condition followed by hiking then horse then
ATV trails. If nothing else, the report is invaluable just for the
references.

One thing I haven't seen on these discussion between hikers, horse riders,
and mountain bikers is the spread of invasive weeds by horses into Natural
and Wilderness Areas. Since horses are herbivores they have the potential
to spread non-native plants (seeds) into new areas by defecation. This to
me is far worse than any type of trail damage caused by hikers or bikers.

Let the discussion and flaming begin!

Pete Rissler



Maybe I need to put words in like liar, idiots, stupid, etc. and write in an
accusatory tone to elicit a response. Looks like science takes a back seat
to flaming.

Nice work Pete. I think a reasonable approach to posting information can
get drowned out by all the other crap. I didn't see this the first time
around.
I look forward to giving it a throrough read when I have a chance.

Matt

On Thu, 25 May 2006 07:48:51 -0700, Pete Rissler wrote:

Maybe I need to put words in like liar, idiots, stupid, etc. and write in an
accusatory tone to elicit a response. Looks like science takes a back seat
to flaming.

Its just that we've heard so many of these things over the years that its
old news. The few people who refuse to believe it will always find some
way to rationalize that its wrong; everyone else already knows better.

--
-BB-
To e-mail me, unmunge my address